I haven’t blogged in a long while. I blame Facebook and Twitter for taking up a lot of my waking hours – writing silly stuff that comes to my mind. However this reply I got from RUTGERS track coach got me wondering – are they fucking serious? Title IX is bad enough for men’s sports but taking opportunity away from hard-working athletes in competing at a higher level really takes the cake.
Here’s an excerpt of my email:
Hi. My son pole vaulted in high school and he has personal best of 13′. He is an incoming sophomore and was hesitant to join the track team as a freshman because of your standards which I believe is 14′. Is it a policy that you don’t consider an athlete if he doesn’t meet your standards? If it is true I find this disturbing because you are denying your students equal opportunity to be great athletes. My older son vaults for TCNJ and his personal best in high school is only 13’6″. He recently broke his school record of 15’4″ and he’s only a sophomore. If he went to Rutgers he wouldn’t have made the standards and his talents would have all been wasted. I would like my younger son to get the same opportunity as he did at Rutgers. He loves and misses pole vaulting a lot. Please let me know if you would consider him. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely
Armando Alorro
Here’s the reply:
Hello,
Thank you for your note. A few years ago the university athletic department imposed squad limits on our team. Because of this, we have had to lower the number of people on our team. The people we are looking at and competing on the team are the guys who can help us on the Big East championship level. In the pole vault it, usually, takes jumps from 15′ to 17 + feet to score in the meet. In all of the events, having those squad limits has forced us to be strict with our rosters. In fact, so we did not go over these limits, we have not had tryouts for the team in the last few years. Unfortunately, with these limits, we would not be able to help your son, or other athletes in the same position, be part of the team and compete in the meets. I realize your son is a sophomore, but, we have encouraged other athletes in the same situation as your son, to look into other schools where they would be given the chance to compete on the team at that school. Those athletes were coming out of high school.
I appreciate your note. I hope my reply further explains our situation and I sincerely wish your son the best with school. Thank you very much.
Coach Mike Mulqueen
I call it bullcrap! How could they possibly do that? Other Div I schools have better programs than Rutgers but they don’t limit student-athlete participation. I’ve seen vaulters from Bucknell, Penn State, UConn, etc who can’t even vault 13 ft. and these programs are way better than Rutgers.
What makes Rutgers think they are special?
I think programs like Rutgers avoid pole vaulters in general because they never really get athletes to improve. They don’t have a qualified coach and their conference is so difficult so they avoid taking anyone onto the team who can’t score at the conference meet as is. The one guy they have who has improved is a club vaulter who probably still works with his club coaches. They even had an 11’6″ girl last year who had trouble jumping 10′. It’s pretty sad actually.